I don't plant my trops outside until the water temps are at least in the high 60s...preferably 70....the hardy ones should do just fine...infact better if you plant them out now...the water temps even if you have a slight frost should be warmer than the outside air and the leaves should be fine.... Lawanna

You will probably want to include some native Wood ferns: Dixie Woodfern, Marginal Woodfern, Southern or Florida Woodfern and Intermediate or Evergreen Woodfern. Male Fern (Dryopteris filix-mas) is native, but is found in the Northern & Western US. Other local ferns are Broad Beechfern, Sensitive Fern, Bracken Fern, Netted Chainfern, Spleenworts (Asplenium sp.), Hay-Scented Fern, Hairy Lipfern, Resurrection Fern (Epiphytic, usually on branches of Oaks or other trees with rough bark), Grape Fern & Rattlesnake Ferns. Another SE native that does well in dry. high shade is the Bramble Fern (Hypolepis repens), sometimes mis-labeled as Marianas Maiden Fern (Macrothelypteris torresiana). It, like the New York Fern and the Japanese Beechfern (Thelypteris decursive-pinnata) can become widespread (invasive). Non-natives I would recommend, are Autumn Fern & it's cultivar 'Brilliance', Tokyo Wood Fern, Hondo Fern (Dryopteris hondoensis, a triploid version of the Autumn Fern) and Holly Ferns. You might also be interested in some of the Clubmosses. Many are easy to grow and require little moisture and maintenance, once established. Selaginella braunii, involvens (caulescens), uncinata, mollendorffii, stauntoniana. Good luck and enjoy! Rb

Cut the dead (or dyng) weeds and grass as low as your mower will go, bagging clippings. You don't have to rake up the straw unless it is so matted that seed can't get to the soil. When you spread the seed, they must reach soil. Look up turfgrass recommendations for whatever state you're in. The land grant university in your state (which usually has local extension offices) may have publications online about which grasses grow best for your area. I'm in Virginia and VA Tech has a list of particular cultivars they recommend. Choose seed that has no noxious weeds and very few other crop or weeds. That information is on the label. Look for germination rate of 90% or more. Nurseries and garden stores usually have better seed than big box stores. You can also order seed from vendors by phone or online.

NH Babs my little drawing i did is by no means to scale. I doubt the walk way on the left will probably be no wider than 36-40”. I originally told the landscape architect to put the walk way against the house leaving larger planting beds against the black aluminium fencing we will have and he balked at that idea. He said it would look much nicer to have a bed on either side. He said the exposed concreted crawl space foundation will look nicer with shrubs in front of it. When he explained it that way it made sense to us. He proposed doing three free standing trellis features with a climbing flower vine on each. and tidy boxwood hedge in between those. There are only three small windows on that side of the house on the bottom level. so it’s mainly just a large expanse of siding. This was all verbal of course. We haven’t gotten any plans back from him yet. This is why I’m here though. Trying to get as much feed back and info as we can so we can be prepared and educated on plants and ideas as to work on this until we get it right. Our last home the architect drew it up based on what we said. We signed off and in the end we were never quite happy with what we got in comparison to the vision in my head. However i can’t blame them as we were not educated enough and prepared enough to make different suggestions or push back when we didn’t agree with them. We had a large lot with a whole lot of plants that made no sense. A huge amount of stamped concrete and we only used a small portion of it etc. We spent a ridiculous amount of money on something that we could never really bring to fruition. Hoping with a lot of research to avoid that this time around!